A friend of a friend of mine brought these heads in for Tim to look at, so that Tim could evaluate their condition. I thought they were pretty cool and thought Id share the PICs. I do not know enough about the casting numbers to confirm that they indeed were cast in 1959, but it is undeniable that they are nailhead heads, and that they are aluminum. COOL! If only these heads could talk, Im sure they would tell quite a story. My friend said that it appeared that the heads were cast using existing tooling, that the castings were not beefed up in the areas that you would expect them to be. Evaluation pieces maybe? Interesting.. Thanks.
These heads have been modified from their beginning. Originally they had no valve seats or valve guides other than being aluminum. Originally cast, by the casting numbers, for 1959. They just made 11 heads supposedly. 5 or 6 had water & 5 or 6 were solid.They were just EXPERIMENTAL & the seats & guides were just aluminum. They didn't have to hold up very long for testing purposes. Looks as though someone has added valve seats & iron guides. It appears that there has been NO other work done except as noted. So now I know that 8 of these heads exist. COOL!!!! Tom T.
I would wonder if the factory was on top of the heat treating needed for the aluminum castings to retain seats and guides (long term) back then. There are still problems today with various OEM's heads. Being that these originally had aluminum guides and seats and may not have been for a running engine per se, heat treating might not have been needed for "their" purposes. I would be very nervous to run those, if that was someone's intention. There's a lot more to it than just putting seats and guides in with the correct amount of press fit.
Tim told me that these heads can't be run in their present condition. The heads had thin spots in the intake bowl long side that went under the seats into the chamber. Both heads already had been welded but all chambers would need additional welding to make running possible. I just think that these heads exist is fascinating. I would like to get into the why and for what purpose these heads were even considered, that resulted in these heads' existence today. When you considered that in the day things like what was considered an intermediate size vehicle then, is bigger in some cases than today's full sized car. Back when fuel mileage and weight wasn't the extreme focus like it is today. They didn't have the benefit of CAD design then like we do now. In spite of all that somebody around 1959 said "hey, let's try building a set of heads out of aluminum!". Why and for what purpose? :idea2: Fascinating. But then give me a length of string and I'll be amused for hours. Thanks.
Definitely fascinating! I would imagine one of THE most profitable changes to a machining assembly line would be to virtually eliminate stopping for tooling changes, along with great increases in feed rates. I don't know what they were using back then for cutting tools, but in my experience cutting aluminum... one of the most profitable moves was to use diamond-tipped inserts. This allowed us to make 10's of 1000's of parts from the same corner, rather than daily (or weekly) tooling changes. Not changing the tooling so hurriedly, maintaining repeatability, would also carry the benefit of less matching components needed to assemble them down the line. These strategies are still amongst the closest studied throughout modern manufacturing. Lower foundry costs, faster machining, faster and more simplified assembly line...the list only begins. I think mileage is waaay down on the list of priorities, based on my experience.
